Gov. Chris Christie moves to the right - right into web stardom

Brian Donohue/The Star-LedgerA frame from the video of Gov. Chris Christie's response to a question about his confrontations with Democrats in the Legislature.Conservatives all over America are congratulating Chris Christie for that outburst at a recent press conference that made him an internet sensation.

The governor’s highly amusing rant followed a question by my colleague Tom Moran, who had asked him whether his “confrontational tone” was working for him in Trenton.

Whether or not it’s working in Trenton, it sure worked on the internet. The video went viral. Hundreds of thousands of people visited nj.com to watch as Christie answered “you should really see me when I’m pissed” and proclaimed to the press: “When you ask me questions, I’m going to answer them directly, straightly, bluntly and nobody in New Jersey is going to have to wonder where I am on an issue.”

I have to congratulate my colleague. I never would have thought of asking the question that triggered that rant. To me, Christie has always seemed like a mushy moderate, a guy who was afraid to take a tough stance that might alienate the largely liberal voters in this blue state.

That the voters are not largely liberal and the state is not particularly blue is an insight that seems to have come upon the governor only recently. His campaign last year was based on a blue-state strategy, the idea that he could not appear too right-wing or he would alienate all those liberal-leaning sorts in the suburbs.

That there are few such types should have become obvious to him on election night, when the only thing that saved him from defeat at the hands of the urban Democratic machines were huge pluralities among suburbanites. After taking office, however, Christie seemed to forget who put him there. He adopted a school-funding formula that shafted the suburbs to preserve funding for urban schools. He also soft-pedaled his opposition to the state’s affordable-housing rules, which punish the suburbs for the sin of being suburbs. And he proceeded to name a cabinet so full of liberals and Democrats that it could have been picked by Jon Corzine.

The Democrats were not mollified by his moderation. Instead, they portrayed him as some sort of rabid right-winger. A right-wing governor of New Jersey? Nationally, that was news. Before long every conservative columnist in the national media had made a pit stop in Trenton on the drive up I-95 to Manhattan. The moderate from Morris had become a right-wing hero in the hinterlands.

The real right-wingers in the state weren’t buying it. Christie’s old nemesis from last year’s GOP primary, former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, was busy taking out ads through his Americans for Prosperity foundation blasting the new governor for failing to keep his promises on property tax relief. And when it came to that liberal Supreme Court behind the school-funding and affordable-housing rules, Lonegan’s ads demanded Christie show his conservative credentials by keeping a campaign promise to change the court lineup.

For once, Christie kept a campaign promise to conservatives. And it worked out even better than he had any right to expect. As of today, Associate Justice John Wallace is no longer a member of the court. The big issue in Trenton is why the Democrats won’t hold a hearing on the governor’s nominee for the spot, Morris County attorney Anne Patterson.

Midway through that now-famous rant, Christie turned the charge of confrontationalism back on the Senate Democrats, stating, “We got them standing in the door of the Senate saying they won’t even hold a hearing on an enormously qualified Supreme Court nominee.” He then proceeded to put the blame squarely on the court for those decisions that make property tax relief impossible in the suburbs.

I was at that now-famous press conference last week, and in my professional assessment it marked a turning point in Christie’s career. He seemed to suddenly figure out what has been obvious on both the state and national scenes for some time now: People are really pissed — if I may employ the governor’s term of art. And what they’re pissed about is almost entirely economic. The old red state-blue state lineup based on social issues is obsolete. At the moment, the people seem to have a better understanding of our fiscal situation than the politicians.

Christie is late in coming to that understanding. But better late than never.